Chapter 52
Elsedora
I’d arrived too late to hear Emmerick’s speech. Sybilla was right—punctuality evaded my nature.
Adoration was baked into Emmerick’s honey-brown eyes as he raked them over me. I fought the fluttering sensation it aroused in my stomach.
I never swooned.
Yet I’d just given a man something my father had once held dear, and now he stared at me like I might make his dreams come true.
It tugged at the girlish part of me that I’d buried long ago—the stargazer, the wild-heart in a field of flowers hoping for someone good to come her way.
He had.
And while I’d ultimately need to let him go, I could revel in the moment just a bit longer.
Stepping up beside him, I waited for him to offer to escort me around the room. His brows shot up.
“Oh!” he realized. Then he held out his arm, and I looped mine through it.
“It’s good to take a spin about once with a pretty woman on your arm—it piques interest. So let me show you off, and then I’ll unleash you on the noble ladies eyeing you from the corner over there.”
As we passed them, I gave the women a little wave of my fingers before setting my clutch down on a table. My hand settled on the top of Emmerick’s forearm.
Flaunting the man came naturally; I enjoyed it a bit too much. He looked good in a crown—even better in the well-tailored jacket I’d selected for him.
I wanted to peel it off him with my teeth.
But he needed to live more and find a woman whose capacity for love wasn’t so stunted. Enjoying kissing someone, or even seeing them naked, had never been a good enough reason to attach myself before.
“Also, if the night should take a bad turn for you—the ladies hanging around Lords Watson and Edger by the punch bowl are from my favorite pleasure hall in Helos. They’re lovely company.”
“Elsedora.” His body stiffened. “Does Sybilla know they’re here?”
I laughed and shrugged. “Will it hurt her any? The madame is a dear friend, and the lords don’t seem to mind their presence one bit.”
He pulled me toward an alcove and spun me to face him before he glanced over at the unexpected guests I’d invited with hesitation. “Which pleasure hall?” he whispered.
“The one on Canter Lane by the bakery.”
His jaw grew rigid; if this revelation wound him any tighter, he may snap. A haunted sort of contemplation crossed his stare as he gazed through me.
“I’ve been to it under Caym’s command. The madam, she looked familiar.” He leaned down and said into my ear, “I killed them... your friend’s previous courtesans. All of them. That place—it was one of my darkest moments as one of Death's envoys.”
Without thinking, I lifted my hands to cup his cheeks and tipped his gaze down to mine. “You did nothing. Caym did that. He alone. You cannot carry that.”
He’d mentioned the first night he’d descended into what he thought were horrid dreams only once.
I’d been thoughtless with this idea, not putting the pieces together.
Leonna, my friend and the owner of the establishment, had shuttered the windows for months.
She’d told me an awful accident had killed her girls and that she had received a loan to renovate.
But she’d been cagey about who’d paid her.
It had become clear now.
“That may be,” he said. “But I can’t help but think maybe Caym chose that place because the women there had been kind to me once.
I was eighteen—had never been with anyone before.
The men in my infantry pressured me into tagging along, but I’d had far too much to drink.
Instead of losing my virginity, I lost the contents of my stomach into a bucket all night.
I paid a woman there to stay and clean up after me. ”
Immortality has a way of sneaking up on you.
Sometimes you think a moment is so inconsequential until it slams into you like a two-ton carriage.
I realized that the first time I’d met Emmerick had not been when he detained me for breaking into the Luz palace.
It had been a long while before, on a very lonely night for me. I’d just traversed the desert and breached the crack in the Sahlms’ wards to gain information for Krait.
You hear a lot of vital things in pleasure halls. The women were privy to more about their patrons than one might expect. I’d befriended Leonna, who allowed me to blend in and eavesdrop.
A rowdy group of soldiers had visited on their way back to Luz, boasting about breaking up a rebel camp along the western border. All but one young man, who seemed green in the face at the thought of being there. It’d amused me, so I’d followed him into an empty chamber.
My hands dropped to my sides as I stared up at Emmerick in disbelief. The angles of his face had hardened up since, his muscles bulkier, and he kept his hair trimmed tighter. But now I could see it was him.
“Did the woman who cared for you have red hair by chance?” I asked him as a knowing smirk crept across my face. “And did she jump on the bed and make lewd noises for a little while to get the men to stop hooting and hollering at the door?”
I’d met him thirty-two years prior.
His mouth dropped open. “No,” he denied. “I mean, yes... she did. But no, please tell me you’re not implying...”
“That it was me, puppy? That I spent a night patting the back of a young man’s head while he apologized as profusely as he vomited? I made a whole ten coins that night and didn’t even need to take off my tunic.”
“I might be sick all over again.” He ran his free hand down his face.
I laughed. Someone foolhardy may have called it fate—I viewed it as a sign that I would always be that woman for him. The one along his path to greatness but not at the end.
I’d enjoy the moments I got while they lasted and brace for my meddling heart to shatter.
“If you survived that night, then surely you can survive a few conversations with the eligible women of the North Court who are eager to meet you. There might even be a pretty florist wandering somewhere.”
He sighed and shook his head, glancing uneasily around the room. Happy that my memory had distracted him from the plummet of self-loathing he’d gone down, I let myself take him in once more.
Irresistible. A bane on my will to let him go—that’s what seeing him in formal wear did to my weak, depraved senses.
“I’ve no business wooing women. There are bigger things to worry about tonight—chiefly, the young man trailing Lark like a lost puppy...”
“Chicken shit.”
His brows rose.
“You’re just scared that you’re rusty. Admit it,” I playfully demanded.
His voice lowered to a deep simmer. “That is not at all the reason.”
“Practice on me. Woo me,” I said far too quickly, wanting to dispel any of his lingering thoughts of the treachery that Caym had subjected him to. Selfishly, I reveled in having his attention before I pushed him away to another.
I needed no wooing. At this rate, he could forget my name and I’d still want to kiss him.
So much for leaving that foolish girl behind me. My mind and my heart were at war.
He rubbed his neck, cheeks flushing that marvelous shade of mauve. “You cannot be wooed.”
“Not with that attitude,” I teased and turned and looked around for an unsuspecting victim. It pained me. “But fine, then I will find you someone else.”
“No.” He took me by the shoulders and pivoted me back toward him. We still stood in an alcove where a large painting of the Hussa Mountains hung.
A mischievous glint of interest lit his eyes. Rosemary and warm spice tickled my nose as he leaned down.
Would he kiss me right here? The possibility of such open affection left me yearning for a taste of him.
He whispered, so close his lips brushed my earlobe, “Elsedora, how am I to speak with anyone else tonight when your presence leaves me breathless? I’m going to dream about the way you look in that gown.
And what distracts me more is that I know what lies beneath it.
You are beyond beautiful. You are indescribable. ”
My breath caught.
To keep from melting into him, I grabbed his forearm. His warmth, his breath, his scent—they drew me in.
He couldn’t beat me at this game. I thrived off other people’s reactions. It was rare for anyone to elicit one from me.
Holding him there, I stood on my tiptoes and responded, “If the gown is distracting you, then do something about it.”
I let the front of my body drag down him as I righted myself.
Too much fabric. Torture.
“Oh, I’ll be dreaming about that, too,” he sparred back with smug delight written all over his too-handsome face. “Is this what you had in mind?”
My mouth hung open. I stood dumbfounded as he retreated and straightened his collar.
“What?” I bumbled out the word, not catching his meaning.
“Is that how I should go speak with the noble ladies—flatter them? Proposition them? Was I rusty, Elsedora?”
The way he said my name sounded like summer honey. I’d lick it straight off a spoon.
“Well... yes,” I said. But also, absolutely not.
“Last chance to stop me,” he said as he retreated toward the crowd of dancing bodies.
I let my gaze trail over him, imagining the chiseled nature of every muscle on his abdomen. A vision of the way his whole body had tensed when he found release plagued me.
Come here. I fought the urge to blurt out the demand.
He should go.
“You know, it’s nice,” he said, taking another step back.
“What is?” I breathed out.
“Seeing you turn to putty in my hands for a change.”
Straightening my shoulders, I faked a scoff.
The blood coursing through my veins was aflame.
“That was very good, pet. You almost had me,” I lied. He could have me on the floor in front of all these people.
I leaned into the gaudy wallpapered alcove behind me, mostly because balance in my heeled shoes grew futile. “Go on then. Woo them all.”
He shook his head and made a tsking sound in response. After he turned to greet a group of nobles, a hand fell on mine and slipped something between my fingers. A key.